In the condition
of the dependent states--the kingdoms of Bithynia, Cappadocia,
Pontus, the principalities of Paphlagonia and Galatia, the numerous
city-leagues and free towns--no outward change was at first
discernible. But, intrinsically, the character of the Roman rule
had certainly undergone everywhere a material alteration. Partly
through the constant growth of oppression naturally incident to every
tyrannic government, partly through the indirect operation of the
Roman revolution--in the seizure, for instance, of the property of
the soil in the province of Asia by Gaius Gracchus, in the Roman
tenths and customs, and in the human hunts which the collectors of
the revenue added to their other avocations there--the Roman rule,
barely tolerable even from the first, pressed so heavily on Asia
that neither the crown of the king nor the hut of the peasant there
was any longer safe from confiscation, that every stalk of corn
seemed to grow for the Roman -decumanus-, and every child of free
parents seemed to be born for the Roman slave-drivers.

It is true
that the Asiatic bore even this torture with his inexhaustible
passive endurance; but it was not patience and reflection that
made him bear it peacefully. It was rather the peculiarly Oriental
lack of initiative; and in these peaceful lands, amidst these
effeminate nations, strange and terrible things might happen,
if once there should appear among them a man who knew how to
give the signal for revolt.